Musings and rants of a middle school teacher out to save the world, one student at a time...

Monday, September 10, 2012

And They Think I'll Never Call

It just cracks me up that my students honestly don't think I'll be calling their parents when they're missing, say, a 100 point writing prompt that we worked on in class for four days.

I graded 3rd period's Pet Rock Projects today (combining an assessment to see if they can explain rocks to me with one of our mandatory writing assignments for their portfolio). We worked on this in class for four days. That's FOUR. So when I had eight kids who hadn't bothered to turn anything in, and it was due Friday, I got on the phone.

One dad was incredulous.

"He worked on this in class?"

"Yes," I replied.

"For four days?"

"Yes, from last Tuesday and it was due Friday."

"And you didn't get it turned in?"

"Nope, nothing as of this afternoon."

"That's ridiculous. There's no reason he shouldn't have turned it in."

"Oh, I agree," I said.

"You'll have it tomorrow."

That one was fun. However, it wasn't as fun as when I called one of my darlings, who answered the phone and politely asked who should he say was calling, and about choked when he found out it was me. Mom got on the phone and I informed her of the missing assignment.

"Young man, where on earth is this assignment that you didn't turn in?" she asked. Then a pause. "He's holding up his finger asking me to wait a minute."....pause...."He's digging in his backpack."....pause...."He has it and he's turning it in tomorrow and if he doesn't You Call Me and we'll get things fixed."

3 comments:

I have an off topic comment, but I've been reading and enjoying your blog for a very long time now. I taught high school math and science for 6 years, then left to go work in the corporate world and now after 14 years of that I am attempting to get back into teaching. In fact, in about an hour I have a job interview for a 7th grade science position. I am extremely excited!!!

Haha, those are awesome calls. I had one last week about a pattern of disrespectful behavior and the mom immediately GUARANTEED me that that would never be a problem EVER again. And let me tell ya, that kid has not been any kind of problem ever since.